Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Things I Learned As A 2015 Aurealis Judge

I was a judge for the 2015
Aurealis Awards and it was a fantastic experience.Assuming there are no conflicts, I will be
putting up my hand to be a judge again this year. I really enjoyed judging the horror
category and would be happy to judge it again, however I’d also really love to
try a different category as well. Fantasy novels, for example.

I learned A LOT as a judge. I
highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about a career in publishing, in
any capacity. Unfortunately I think most of these lessons are best learned by
actually being a judge and will be hard for me to pass on to you through a blog
post. However I am going to do my very best.

I’ll start with the smaller
things and work my way up to the bigger, more complicated lessons.

Firstly, if you are publishing an
anthology, having a table of contents at
the start is VITAL. It is almost-but-not-quite as vital in a novel. Trying
to skip through anthologies to find specific stories without a working index
actually made me a cry a few times. Having a judge in tears before they even
start reading your story because the e-book hasn’t been formatted properly is
not a good start. If I didn’t have to read those stories (EG: if I was reading
for pleasure) I wouldn’t have read them at all.

Secondly, when reading a novel or
story, emotional connection is the
biggest thing you're looking for. You want to feel. Something, anything.
Ideally I want to connect with the characters, but just being surprised or pleased
or uneasy... anything at all, as long as you are generating some kind of
intended emotion in me. Please note I said ‘intended’. A few authors got very
low scores because I was disgusted by misogynistic portrayals of women,
indelicate, unsympathetic portrayals of incest and bestiality, or just general
bigotry. Don’t be that writer.

(And don’t come bitching to me
that I scored stories low just because of bestiality, etc. Some of the incest
and bestiality stories got high scores, because they were well written and
sympathetic. Also, that’s one of those sentences I never planned to write, but
here we are.)

Thirdly, novels and shorts are judged on really different criteria. If a
story is under 2k, I'm looking at ideas, but the moment it gets longer than
that, I am really looking to connect with the characters.

And style is more important than both of
those things.

A writer's priority over 2k
should be:

1. Style

2. Character

3. Ideas

And under 2k:

1. Style

2. Ideas

3. Character

Some people write amazing short
stories and SHIT novels for this reason. And visa versa.

Fourthly, you learn a lot more
from reading shit writing than you do from reading the 5 start books. One of my
friends was bemoaning his lack of short-listing this year and I suggested he
sign up to judge this year. He said he ‘learned by reading the winners’ and I
wanted to shake him a little bit (okay, a lot). You learn by reading the losers.

I read 115 short stories, 33
novellas and 13 novels and ranked all of them between 1 and 5 stars. Being able to articulate what made
something a 1, 2 or 3 start story was much, much more valuable than being able
to say what I loved about the 5 star books. And the difference between the
4 and 5 star books was so important too. Seeing what pushed a story from ‘good’
to ‘amazing’ was the kind of knowledge I should have had to pay for.

Also, I could also accurately judge a stories
rating within the first page.
Sometimes the score dropped, if it had a weak ending, but if a story started
weakly, it never salvaged itself. I said this to an editor who has been in the
business for years, and she said she can tell within a paragraph if a novel
will be any good, which doesn’t surprise me at all.

Maybe you are screaming that is
unfair right now, but I’m telling you it isn’t. 161 stories and not a single
one with a crappy opening page managed to change my mind. NOT A SINGLE ONE. So when I say ‘style’ should be your priority, I
really mean it. You want to be easy to read, evocative and have a skilled use
of language.

Fourthly, there is a lot more competition in the Australian market than I
realised. I only rated five stories five stars, but there were a hell of a
lot of four star stories. There are plenty of brilliant writers in Australia,
producing breathtaking stories. I was continually wowed. Thankfully people read
a lot faster than they write, so there’s plenty of pie for everyone. However
you should be reading contemporary works and you should be reading widely, if
you want to stay on top of the market.

If you read the hammy best seller
(*coughfiftyshadesofgreycough*) and think ‘I can do better than that’, you’re
in for a rude shock. Being an Aurealis Judge made me realise just how much I
have to step up my game if I want to play with the boy boys (and girls). I have to stop wallowing around in my giant
ego and keep improving my craft.

Lastly, don’t go to lunch with an
agent the same week as the finalist are announced if two of her clients were in
the novel category and there was no shortlist announced. People are going to be butthurt where books are concerned. Writing
is personal, for agents, editors AND authors.

I caught a hell of a lot of (good
natured) shit about the lack of shortlist in the horror novel category. I still
think it was the right call, however in saying that, I am saying the other
novels in the horror category this year were not up to standard to be
shortlisted. Australia is a small writing community and that means there are 12
authors out there who are not my biggest fans right now. (Actually Trent cast
shade on the lack of short list in his acceptance speech, so it might still be
13.)

Tread carefully on other people’s egos. Saying no sucks sometimes. But saying no is
another one of those lessons you have to learn.

I may be ambitious and try and
write a post on writing style next week. Or I may go back to my Characters
series. Both are on the table. Remember to comment here or email me if you have
something in particular you would like me to do a blog series on.

2 comments:

It's a pretty big divide between critics and readers who do it for fun. Like, a critic's JOB is to point out what's wrong about something (though they should always try to say what *does* work, if anything, I imagine). Readers aren't generally being paid to pick something apart, on the other hand, and aren't held to the same rules that competition judges are. Judges do have to wade through a slush pile, mind you... so I'm not totally unsympathetic to the poor judge/critic/reviewer. That said, writers would do well to tidy up their MS. It's just professionalism. Many jump the gun, of course.

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About Me

Born in 1985, Talitha is a geeky Australian writer who spends an unhealthy amount of time reading and watching horror movies. She also loves fresh water shrimps and snakes, and lives in a house dominated by various tanks housing both. She advises that shrimps are the best companions for writers; as they always look like they are typing. Snakes, on the other hand, simply knock everything off your desk—including keyboards, mugs, entire computers and shrimp tanks.
Talitha’s other interests include entomology, rock climbing, reading, web design, photography and video gaming.